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The Grey Wolf, Louise Penny (St. Martin’s. 432 pages) We are at book 19 of Penny’s series set in Quebec featuring Armand Gamache. This is way past the time when most series are flagging or simply dying but Penny is a daring author. Rather than settling into a comfortable routine, she gives us her most ambitious novel yet with a complex, world-threatening plot and thrilling chases right down to a cliffhanger ending.
Be warned: The story begins slowly with Gamache and his wife enjoying a quiet August evening on their Three Pines terrace when the phone rings. Gamache looks at the number and at first refuses to answer. He finally does and then explodes in a most unaccustomed rage. An old enemy has emerged. Then, there is a break-in at Gamache’s pied-a-terre with the only thing missing an old jacket. It’s soon returned with a cryptic note.
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Just what’s happening is a slow buildup to a very dense plot with international complications. There is a murder but it’s part of the larger threat that has Gamache and his two sidekicks heading across Canada and the U.S. as the plot to kill thousands becomes ever more clear. The last hundred pages move like lightning and the implication is there are more books to come. Clearly, Penny isn’t about to rest on her considerable laurels.
Precipice, Robert Harris (Random House of Canada, 464 pages) Harris remains one of my favourite authors. His ability to combine serious historical research with fictional storytelling make his novels both authentic and riveting to read. He is one writer I recommend without hesitation to both crime fans and lovers of history. This, his 17th book, takes place in the harrowing months at the start of the First World War and is set in the highest levels of British politics and society.
The kernel of fact here, is that prime minister Herbert H. Asquith, faced with war in Europe and rebellion in Ireland, embarked on a passionate affair with Venetia Stanley, less than half his age, beautiful, willful and spoiled. For months, Asquith, besotted, lavished Venetia with love letters that included insider secrets about British politics as the country headed to war. It appeared that Venetia was intrigued by state secrets and so Asquith brought them to her, even reading them in the car and then tossing them out the windows.
Harris sets a policeman on the trail of those state secrets, which seemed headed to Britain’s enemies. This makes for terrific tension and, if this book isn’t as good as Munich or An Officer and a Spy, it’s only because Edwardian aristocracy was stiff even in passion.
Midnight and Blue, Ian Rankin (Orion, 329 pages) There are now two dozen Rebus novels by Rankin, along with dozens of other crime tales with different characters. What’s remarkable is that there isn’t a bad book in the lot. And that applies to this latest in the Rebus saga. John Rebus is in prison for attempting to kill an old adversary. He’s appealed his sentence but it’s stalled and his lawyers aren’t returning his calls. It would appear that he’s faced with a copper’s worst nightmare. Then a murder in a locked cell presents him with a puzzle to solve, which might also save his sanity.
Outside, Siobhan Clarke is investigating the disappearance of a girl. Missing? Yes. But, is she dead or has she left freely? While Rebus tries to sort out clues in a place where prisoners and guards are all suspects, Siobhan can’t find a thread to follow and then it all starts to converge in Rankin’s stellar style. Not to be missed by fans of good crime writing.
A Sea of Spectres, Nancy Taber (Acorn Press, 248 pages) This debut novel by Taber, an ex-military officer and now a professor at Brock University, is set in PEI and has a touch of the paranormal mixed with a nice classic detective novel. Raina Doiron is a detective with a specialty in hunting smugglers and traffickers. She’s good at her job and in demand but a new job calls for her to spend a week on a Coast Guard ship. It seems Raina is phobic about the ocean. Whenever she gets close to it, a phantom ship calls to her.
Raina is investigating a missing-persons case when she discovers that her family has a long history of uncanny ability to foresee events. That leads her to investigating her own history while, at the same time, searching for the missing and chasing the wanted. If all this sounds a bit choppy, it’s not. It all blends nicely and introduces a detective who seems destined to return.
Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell, Nicholas Meyer (Mysterious Press, 285 pages) In The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, Nicholas Meyer transported Sherlock Holmes to Vienna for treatment by Sigmund Freud and launched one of the best Sherlockian stories ever. It was a great novel that became a great film. Now, 50 years later, Meyer has created a novel just as good.
The time is June, 1916. Dr. Watson is treating the wounded from France when Holmes appears, battered and, as always, with a case to chase. This time, it’s a secret plan by Germany to win the war. What’s the plan? That’s what the British secret service wants Holmes and Watson to find out. The clue is a cable to Mexico – the Telegram From Hell – and an old adversary, the secret German agent Van Bork. It means travel on the Atlantic amid U boats and assassination attempts and that’s just the beginning.
Once again, Meyer gives us a wonderful plot line with lots of thrills and chills and a chase that makes me long for a film version.
The Sequel, Jean Hanff Korelitz (Celadon, 304 pages) The Sequel is, indeed, a sequel. It follows Korelitz’s witty and enchanting The Plot, where a middling MFA writing professor at a middling Vermont college gets the perfect plot from a student, who then conveniently dies. The prof nips the perfect plot, writes the novel and becomes a star, but then someone somewhere starts sending threatening notes.
The Sequel picks up that plot and then creates a brilliant new one. The trick in Korelitz’s book is to make the author’s widowed wife the central character. Anna Williams-Bonner is happily living in Manhattan. Life is good. She has her late husband’s considerable royalties and she’s penned a bestseller of her own.
She’s at a book signing when a Post-It warns her of trouble. The rest of this terrific novel is her quest to get to the bottom of it. Korelitz’s characters have depth and her witty intelligent prose is a pleasure to read. Needless to say, I loved this book. But be warned. I suggest you read The Plot first to get the background. It isn’t necessary but The Plot is also first-rate and getting the full story is great fun.
The Treasure Hunters Club, Tom Ryan (Simon & Schuster, 400 pages) I nearly skipped this excellent book because the info stressed Ryan’s young-adult credentials. But he’s from Nova Scotia so I decided to give it a glance and I’m delighted. The Treasure Hunters Club has a young-adult character, but it’s also quite an adult tale with some interesting grown-ups.
Peter Barnett is one of the adults, or at least a semblance of one. At 40, he has nothing to show for his life and so when he receives notice that he’s inherited a mansion in a town called Maple Bay, he’s ready to jump to it. The mansion was the home of an estranged branch of his family. What happened?
This leads us to our youngster, Dandy Feltzen, grieving for her late beloved grandpa, who spent his entire life searching for clues to an elusive mystery. By luck, Dandy finds a lead and decides to follow grandpa’s obsession.
That takes us to aspiring author Cass Jones, who’s housesitting in Maple Bay and searching for the kernel of a plot that will enable her to write a bestselling novel and jumpstart her writing career. All three of these people are on quests that overlap and entwine.
Ryan is a good storyteller and he has a lot of plot twists that work really well. He’s a writer to watch.
I’ll Be Waiting, Kelley Armstrong (St. Martin’s Press, 336 pages) I love Armstrong’s mystery novels but I usually skip her paranormal or horror tales. However, it’s Halloween, and what better than a nice ghost story from a really good writer? Nicola Laughton was born with cystic fibrosis and no one expected her to live to adulthood, much less marry. But medical treatments advance and Nicola does live and, at 30, she meets Anton, who lets her dream of an even longer and rosier future.
But just months after their marriage, Anton is dead, killed in a car accident and his final words to her are, “I’ll be waiting for you.” But did Anton say the words? Or was it his ghost hovering over his body? A witness to the accident says it was the spectre.
Spiritualists believing in the ghost are hounding Nicola, compounding her grief. When she decides to settle the matter, inviting a medium to an isolated beach house that once belonged to Anton’s family, she’s hoping for release. But things begin to go bump in the night and then Nicola finds a body that’s not spectral at all. Terrific ghost story with a great mystery too.
Johnny Delivers, Wayne Ng (Guernica Editions, 283 pages) Johnny Wong, 18, is tasked with holding his collapsing family together in this wonderfully evocative novel. A loan has been called in and they may lose the family restaurant, and that means the family home and a lot of dreams.
So Johnny and a pal dream up a scheme. They’ll add something a little extra for delivery with the egg foo young. What transpires is funny and sad, and a great trip to Toronto the Good when it was still illegal to shop on Sunday.
This is a great book but it’s also a nice historical look. Great gift for any Toronto lover.